Just over a year ago, when Coin Coin Chapter Two: Mississippi Moonchile came out, Matana Roberts said the project was far from finished and promised to release another 10 chapters. Well, Chapter Three arrives in 2015.
The incredible alto saxophonist, composer, improviser and sound experimentalist had collaborated with several musicians in both of the previous instalments: on Chapter One: Gens de couleur libres Matana collaborated with more than a dozen Montréal musicians part of experimental and avant-rock scenes, and Chapter Two: Mississippi Moonchile featured a New York jazz sextet. The upcoming Coin Coin Chapter Three: river run thee, is a solo affair, as the press release explains, “building a hallucinatory and hypnotic soundworld from layered streams of sung and spoken vocals, pure and processed saxophone, drones, noise, sampler/fx pedals and field recordings.”. This solo effort came to life following a lengthy solitary road trip that Matana took through the American South earlier this year, to collect historical and documentary information through interviews, site visits and field recordings.
In celebration of the new album, Matana has moved to a small houseboat in Brooklyn where she’s logging “observations and reflections that further develop themes presented on the record” in a blog.
As with the previous instalments, Matana has again recruited Jerusalem In My Heart’s Radwan Ghazi Moumneh to record the album.
Coin Coin Chapter Three: river run thee is set to be released on February 3rd via Constellation. Luckily, we can already wrap our ears around an excerpt from the album’s staggering cut ‘always say your name / nema, nema, nema’.

Chicago-born, New York-based extraordinary alto saxophonist, composer, improviser and sound experimentalist Matana Roberts releases today the second instalment from her ongoing experimental project Coin Coin, following her 2011’s Coin Coin Chapter One: Gens de couleur libres.
Coin Coin Chapter Two: Mississippi Moonchile is driven by an aesthetic practice that Matana calls ‘panoramic sound quilting’ and conjures “some of the most nuanced, thoughtful and substantial American liberation music of the 21st century” as the press release notes.

Chapter One: Gens de couleur libres saw Matana collaborating with more than a dozen Montréal musicians involved in the experimental and avant-rock scenes, including label mates Godspeed You! Black Emperor!. Chapter Two: Mississippi Moonchile is a more intimate affair featuring a New York jazz sextet comprising pianist Shoko Nagai, trumpeter Jason Palmer, double bass player Thomson Kneeland, drummer Tomas Fujiwara and operatic tenor singer Jeremiah Abiah.

The long running Coin Coin project is far from finished, and Matana plans to release another 10 chapters. Right now, we can indulge our ears with Chapter Two: Mississippi Moonchile, available on vinyl, CD and digitally via Constellation. You can also head over to The Wire to stream the entire album, and listen to two magnificent cuts, ‘amma jerusalem school’ and ‘for this is’ beneath.